Here is an interview that I did on TBN’s Praise The Lord program with Pastor Scott Thomas. We had a great time on the show and have really been able to make some great connections for the Church Diversity movement, both within the United States and abroad.

Many of us grew up hearing the phrase, “It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.” The reality is that statement isn’t totally true. Winning does matter and we all have the deep desire to be a winner. Everyone wants to win and everyone wants to be a winner: The business that you work for, your church, your children’s school, and even those who don’t like winners. As much as I don’t like Kobe Bryant, I like the fact that he’s a winner.

The Difference Between A Winner & A Loser is the desire to win. It does matter whether we win or lose and what matters are the things that we can control. I described those two things in a previous post I had written titled, The Two Things That Leaders Can Control.

Vince Lombardi said it best when he said, “Winning isn’t everything, but the will to win is everything.” If you want to be a winner, you have to want to win. Larry Bird says it this way, “A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.”

The Difference Between A Winner & A Loser is the habit of winning and the desire to win. Winners get in the habit of dreaming BIG, thinking BIGGER and doing what losers don’t. If you want to be a winner… Go Win! dream BIG. think BIGGER. If you want to be a loser, sit on the sidelines, complain and make excuses why you can’t win.

This post will get straight to the point… If you want to get Re-Tweeted, Implement These Top 10 Ways To Get Re-Tweeted Below:

1. SPACE – Leave 18-20 characters available in your tweet… allows enough room for your name @ sign and RT. This is the most common reason people will not RT your post, individuals don’t want to take the time and energy to remove characters and shorten your post. TIME IS MONEY!

3. CONSISTENCY – Make sure your tweets are consistent. Think of your tweets in a similar fashion that you look at newspaper or magazine subscription. Your followers will learn to trust and grow to expect a particular type of content in a consistently delivered manner. CONSISTENCY COUNTS!

4. TACTFUL – Have a keen sense of what to tweet and what not to tweet in order to maintain good relationships with your twitter community. Don’t consistently ask your Twitter Community to Re-Tweet your tweet… If you feel that the tweet or content is valuable, it may make sense to ask selective followers to RT a tweet. If you ask all of your followers to RT your content all of the time, your message will fall on deaf ears. HAVE SOME MANNERS!

5. RECIPROCATE – Give and receive value to the Twitter community. Re-tweet other’s tweets if you find their information valuable and be sure that you provide them the RT credit they deserve. Don’t be a Re-Tweetaholic or once again your message will fall on deaf ears. SHARE THE LOVE!

6. BRAND – Develop a consistent Twitter brand, presence, notoriety, content etc. desirable of being Re-Tweeted. Many people have put the time energy and effort to earn the right for their content to be Re-Tweeted. If you look at theTop 50 Re-tweeted Twitter Users Of All Timethe one thing that’s consistent is that they all have their own unique brand. GET BRANDED!

7. RECOGNITION – Get recognized or develop a relationship with the people on the Top 50 Re-Tweeted Twitter Users Of All Time. :) Seriously you don’t have to develop a relationship with people on that list; however having your content re-tweeted by folks with a strong Twitter brand will help with future RT’s. GET RECOGNIZED!

8. LISTS – Believe it or not being on the right Twitter List can increase your ability to be re-tweeted. People utilize their lists to keep the people they want to hear from front and center. Lists can be as important on the Retweetometer as the number of followers. Lists are a great measure of content value. GET LISTED!

9. REPEAT – Repeat #1. This is by far the most important aspect of being re-tweeted and often times the most over-looked. Leave at least 18 characters, if you can leave 36 that’s even better… you have potentially doubled your chances. SPACE IS KEY!

10. BLOG ABOUT IT – Write a simple blogpost about How To Get Re-Tweeted. 🙂 In all seriousness write about Twitter or Social Media – People in the wold of Social Media love to share content about Social Media. TOPIC MATTERS!

The wacky crazy world of Twitter brings the good, the bad and the ugly to the social media community. The recent streams of Twitter DM Spam Scams are probably the ugliest of them all. If you are unaware of what I’m talking about, I’m referring to the fact that innocent individuals are getting their Twitter accounts hacked and computers being phished.

These hacks consist of random spam DM’s (direct messages) being sent to their followers with a link attached to it. When individuals click on these links, their accounts can also be compromised creating a vicious cycle. No one is exempt from these hacks, I know plenty of innocent, tech savvy and social media aficionado’s who’ve gotten hacked. Below are a few sample of the recent spam DM’s (don’t click the links, because I just copied and pasted them from some DM’s have been sent to me, I repeat don’t click the links). You didn’t really think that I was going to allow these links to be clickable did you? Here are a few samples:

“I cant believe you posted this http://t.co/DK4odcq about me, i am so upset right now.”

“someone is making really bad updates about you your twitter, user is http://t.co/ecOoJhr”

“Earn extra money! I do, its easy, i searched and I found this really good site, very helpful, I make $6,950 per month http://t.co/cTnSuqO”

As you can see one of the indicators of the current DM spam is the “t.co” and they generally have some off base lower case punctuation. Again, this is just a small sampling of the DM’s that have been floating around. Some of the other spam type tweet include: a colon cleanse, iq test, male enhancement, is this you, Lol. this you?? and people making x-amount of $$$’s a day on-line. I have outlined 7 Ways To Avoid The Twitter Spam Scam below:

1. Don’t open any DM links that seem remotely weird, that ask questions, starts with “hey,” or has links in general… especially links ending in .info or that have t.co in them.

2. Use common sense- if you see xsgay. something in a link, it’s probably not a good link to click. The most recent one is Lol. this you?? Lol this is funny. HaHa you look funny on here! Or basically anything with laughter in it. somebody wrote something about you in this blog here http://tinyurl.com/yauj2fwAsk yourself the question “Does my Twitter friend even talk like this tweet reads?” Even if it’s not a DM, avoid any links that may look remotely questionable, even in @replies.

3. Never log into anything with your Twitter account information unless it has a twitter oath login or logging in directly from Twitter.com or a trusted third party application.

4. Change your password every couple of months and immediately after opening any of the above-mentioned links.

5. Follow @spam which is Twitter’s official spam account. You can send them DM’s reporting spammers and spam problems that you’re having. They are good about helping out. You can also click the Twitter Help link and file a formal help ticket complaint.

It always surprises me to see managers who suffocate their staff. By suffocating their staff, I’m referring to leaders who are unwilling to let their employees out of their grips for fear of losing the employee or losing control. These types of leaders are actually doing the exact opposite of what they are trying to do. This tight grip and suffocating behavior will reduce performance, squash creativity and inevitably cause employees to leave.

When I was a young Warden, my mentor and boss would frequently tell me this regarding my staff members. “Scott, hold onto your team loosely, because ultimately they are not yours to hold onto.” That statement has always stuck with me!

If we hold onto our employees loosely, they feel the freedom of the open hands which ultimately increases productivity and develops more leaders. This philosophy of encouraging your employees to “grow and go” will result in you losing some great ones from time to time. The great thing about leading with the open-handed mentality, is the fact that those you loose will always be quickly replenished.

On the other hand, the employer who plants a suffocating scarcity seed, won’t reap a scarce harvest. I have led several teams in which we lost key players to some higher impact roles; however every time they were replenished with some equally amazing team members without the team missing a beat.

Scarcity Mentality – Not enough good to go around vs. Abundance Mentality – There is more than enough great to go around.

If you are in an suffocating staff situation, encourage the leader to open their hands. If that doesn’t work, it may be time “to go and grow.”

Social media has well eclipsed the thought that it is just a fad; it is more like cotton – the fabric of our lives. Social Media is not simply new media… it’s the media. It’s the chosen form of media of the people. If a business wants to be successful they have to be where the people are and the people are on social media.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in the business of selling trinkets, pancakes, books, gas, financial services, phones, hamburgers or cars… Your customers are on social media and that’s where you need to be. Many of them are reading this post from their mobile device. They want to hear from you, they want to find you and more importantly they want to share the good, bad and ugly about you with their tribe. Social media has allowed ordinary Joe to have a mom and pop type connection with their favorite brands, products and businesses through Twitter and other forms of Social Media.

If a company is not on social media they are failing bigger than a pregnant Twitter Fail Whale and that’s BIG. Businesses need to have a social media presence just for the sake of being able to know what people are saying about them and their products. Like it or not people are talking about your business, they are talking the good stuff, bad stuff and ugly stuff. Not only are they talking but their friends and followers are listening.

Research shows that 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations and only 14% trust advertisements. For that reason, every business should have someone that understands social media (consultant or in-house) assigned and responsible for their social media presence.

I remember traveling to Florida this summer and had a layover at KCI, Kansas City International Airport. If you have ever been to KCI you know that it is very tight (not cool, but small). You have to leave outside of security to get food, other than a few little kiosk like stands. While I was at KCI, I tweeted an honest but somewhat negative tweet, my tweet was this: “Kansas City might have some good BBQ, but they need to work on this airport captivity, can’t leave, must re-enter through security airport!” I also tweeted, “Kansas City airport is like a prison once you get through security… You’re Locked Down.”

Shortly after my tweet went out, I received a twitter response from @kciairport that read as follows: “@scottwilliams our design is not ideal for transiting pax. Working to increase avail concessions in gate areas. Please enjoy our Free Wifi.” I loved the quick response and the fact that they directly addressed my concern as a customer. It immediately changed my thoughts about the Kansas City International Airport. I felt compelled to share my change of heart with my Social Media Tribe. I tweeted this response, “Big #FistBump to @KCIAirport for having free wifi & a social media crew that responds to customers. Awesome! Others should learn from this.”

The fact that the Kansas City International Airport had a viable social media presence saved their brand from a black eye and ended up adding value to their business. If they didn’t have a great social media presence, those pregnant fail whale thoughts of mine would still be actively swimming around in the online waters of Twitter and Facebook. Not to mention that 78% of my social media friends would agree with me and have similar thoughts.

Some Businesses Are #Winning With Social Media… While Others #Fail!

Do your favorite brands and businesses have a viable Social Media Presence? Share your thoughts and experiences.

Over the years I have found that Helping Others Win is a very important duty. As leaders, our primary goal is to help those around us win. As followers, our primary goal is to help those that we follow win. If those around us are winning, the organization wins and that’s a win win.

As parents it’s important to help our children win. We provide environments, teaching, structure, systems, beliefs and assistance that help create opportunities for success. As married couples, we must be wholly committed to helping one another win.

Helping Others Win is such a simple concept, but it’s often overlooked in this self-consuming day and age. It’s much easier for a boss to fire someone, a coach to give up on someone and a spouse to hit the road than it is to commit to winning.

Charlie Sheen may be a little off of his rocker, but the one thing he gets is Winning. He was quoted as saying, “I’m not bi-polar, I’m bi-winning.”

We need to become more focused on being bi-winning… In other-words, creating situations where everyone wins. Help Someone Win Today!

Why are people not committed to Helping Others Win? Share your thoughts on helping others win.

It was great to sit down with one of the great authors and ministry leaders John Ortberg. John asked me some candid questions about the state of the church and the state of Church Diversity. I have always appreciated his wisdom, leadership, writing & influence from afar… It was an honor to sit down and hear his heart and field a few questions.

Share your thoughts about anything we discussed in the interview, or feel free to share ask any additional questions that you may have.

Success: To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.